Thursday, August 16, 2018

A True Hero : The Librarian Who Couldn't Ask For More

The Story of a True Hero

"Nanay" Gavina Castro from the Philippines, lives in a small town of Lomboy, Dagupan City -Pangasinan. She currently worksin a community library and trying to maintain the small workplace she calls "Barangay's Library of Information."

The small town of Lomboy Dagupan-Pangasinan, Philippines.

(The exact area where they built the library used to be a docking place for the small boats of fishermen, since fishing is one of the town's sources of living.)

The displayed books were donations that came from the Main City Public Library. The books are really old and not enough to cater the needs of the people in the community but for a supermom like Nanay Gavina, everything seems to be just fine.She never loses hope for the library and the kids. She started planning on how to improve her collections and even during summer vacation, she still manages to open the library for avid visitors especially to the young children of Lomboy.

The summer weather in the Philippines is actually the best time for the kids to enjoy, where most of them play out in the sun, help their moms with the house chores and their fathers in the farm or in the sea to catch some fish which they can sell to the market. But it's also the best time for Nanay Gavina to open the library to welcome anyone who loves to read books, enjoy the peacefulness and learn new things.

The True Story of Sacrifice and Dedication

The struggle is real for Nanay Gavina and for the library, one of the difficulties she's facing in order to get the new books that the children might need will be coming from the Main City of Dagupan which will take 2-3 hours of travel by boat.

Apparently, most visitors of the Library do not how to read. It gets even harder that some of the kids in the small town of Lomboy do not understand the Philippines' main language which is Tagalog.She helps them by translating the words into their dialect so they can deeply understand what's the book is all about and also she helps these children do their homework from School.These sacrifices are nothing but a piece of cake according to Nanay Gavina. Not only that she serves as the community librarian but she also becomes the teacher for these kids.

Nanay Gavina earns less than $60 (US Dollars) more or less Php. 2,600 (Philippine Peso) per month.

It makes her happy that she can teach her own kids inside the library and becomes the second mother for other children who visits her. When she was still young , she always have the time to visit the library and read. She's the person that gives importance to the things that she learned through reading and these traits she wanted her children to have.

Nanay Gavina wants her library to get fix, so the more visitors she can accommodate, the more people in the community realize that there is a place where they can feel the importance of learning and having a good education in life.

True Heroes are Public Servants,

They save lives, they give hopes,

They are inspirations, they create dreams,

They don't ask anything in return,

They sacrifice too much for others.

and sometimes normal people like us do not recognize these sacrifices made.